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Humankind is
capable of saving the Earth if we stand by the principles of solidarity and
harmony with nature - guaranteeing the fundamental participation of all
citizens as active stakeholders at a national, regional and global level,
writes Evo Morales.
16th December 08 - Evo Morales, Alternet
Sisters and brothers, today our Mother Earth is ill. From the beginning of the 21st century we have lived the hottest years of the last thousand years.
Global
warming is generating abrupt changes in the weather: the retreat of
glaciers and the decrease of the polar ice caps; the increase of the
sea level and the flooding of coastal areas, where approximately 60% of
the world population live; the increase in the processes of
desertification and the decrease of fresh water sources; a higher
frequency in natural disasters that the communities of the earth
suffer[1]; the extinction of animal and plant species; and the spread
of diseases in areas that before were free from those diseases.
One
of the most tragic consequences of the climate change is that some
nations and territories are the condemned to disappear by the increase
of the sea level.
Everything
began with the industrial revolution in 1750, which gave birth to the
capitalist system. In two and a half centuries, the so called
“developed” countries have consumed a large part of the fossil fuels
created over five million centuries.
Capitalism
Competition
and the thirst for profit without limits of the capitalist system are
destroying the planet. Under Capitalism we are not human beings but
consumers. Under Capitalism Mother Earth does not exist, instead there
are raw materials. Capitalism is the source of the asymmetries and
imbalances in the world. It generates luxury, ostentation and waste for
a few, while millions in the world die from hunger in the world. In the
hands of capitalism everything becomes a commodity: the water, the
soil, the human genome, the ancestral cultures, justice, ethics, death
… and life itself. Everything, absolutely everything, can be bought and
sold and under capitalism. And even “climate change” itself has become
a business.
“Climate
change” has placed all humankind before a great choice: to continue in
the ways of capitalism and death, or to start down the path of harmony
with nature and respect for life.
In
the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the developed countries and economies in
transition committed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by at
least 5% below the 1990 levels, through the implementation of different
mechanisms among which market mechanisms predominate.
Until
2006, greenhouse effect gases, far from being reduced, have increased
by 9.1% in relation to the 1990 levels, demonstrating also in this way
the breach of commitments by the developed countries.
The
market mechanisms applied in the developing countries[2] have not
accomplished a significant reduction of greenhouse effect gas emissions.
Just
as well as the market is incapable of regulating global financial and
productive system, the market is unable to regulate greenhouse effect
gas emissions and will only generate a big business for financial
agents and major corporations.
The Earth is much more important than the stock exchanges of Wall Street and the world
While
the United States and the European Union allocate $4100 billion to save
the bankers from a financial crisis that they themselves have caused,
programs on climate change get 313 times less, that is to say, only $13
billion.
The
resources for climate change are unfairly distributed. More resources
are directed to reduce emissions (mitigation) and less to reduce the
effects of climate change that all the countries suffer
(adaptation)[3]. The vast majority of resources flow to those countries
that have contaminated the most, and not to the countries where we have
preserved the environment most. Around 80% of the Clean Development
Mechanism projects are concentrated in four emerging countries.
Capitalist
logic promotes a paradox in which the sectors that have contributed the
most to deterioration of the environment are those that benefit the
most from climate change programs.
At
the same time, technology transfer and the financing for clean and
sustainable development of the countries of the South have remained
just speeches.
The
next summit on climate change in Copenhagen must allow us to make a
leap forward if we want to save Mother Earth and humanity. For that
purpose the following proposals for the process from Poznan to
Copenhagen:
Attack the structural causes of climate change
1)
Debate the structural causes of climate change. As long as we do not
change the capitalist system for a system based in complementarity,
solidarity and harmony between the people and nature, the measures that
we adopt will be palliatives that will limited and precarious in
character. For us, what has failed is the model of “living better”, of
unlimited development, industrialisation without frontiers, of
modernity that deprecates history, of increasing accumulation of goods
at the expense of others and nature. For that reason we promote the
idea of Living Well, in harmony with other human beings and with our
Mother Earth.
2)
Developed countries need to control their patterns of consumption -- of
luxury and waste -- especially the excessive consumption of fossil
fuels. Subsidies of fossil fuel, that reach $150-250 billion[4], must
be progressively eliminated. It is fundamental to develop alternative
forms of power, such as solar, geothermal, wind and hydroelectric both
at small and medium scales.
3)
Agrofuels are not an alternative, because they put the production of
foodstuffs for transport before the production of food for human
beings. Agrofuels expand the agricultural frontier destroying forests
and biodiversity, generate monocropping, promote land concentration,
deteriorate soils, exhaust water sources, contribute to rises in food
prices and, in many cases, result in more consumption of more energy
than is produced.
Substantial commitments to emissions reduction that are met
4)
Strict fulfilment by 2012 of the commitments[5] of the developed
countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least by 5% below
the 1990 levels. It is unacceptable that the countries that polluted
the planet throughout the course of history make statements about
larger reductions in the future while not complying with their present
commitments.
5)
Establish new minimum commitments for the developed countries of
greenhouse gas emission reduction of 40% by 2020 and 90% by for 2050,
taking as a starting point 1990 emission levels. These minimum
commitments must be met internally in developed countries and not
through flexible market mechanisms that allow for the purchase of
certified emissions reduction certificates to continue polluting in
their own country. Likewise, monitoring mechanisms must be established
for the measuring, reporting and verifying that are transparent and
accessible to the public, to guarantee the compliance of commitments.
6)
Developing countries not responsible for the historical pollution must
preserve the necessary space to implement an alternative and
sustainable form of development that does not repeat the mistakes of
savage industrialisation that has brought us to the current situation.
To ensure this process, developing countries need, as a prerequisite,
finance and technology transfer.
Address ecological debt
7)
Acknowledging the historical ecological debt that they owe to the
planet, developed countries must create an Integral Financial Mechanism
to support developing countries in: implementation of their plans and
programs for adaptation to and mitigation of climate change; the
innovation, development and transfer of technology; in the preservation
and improvement of the sinks and reservoirs; response actions to the
serious natural disasters caused by climate change; and the carrying
out of sustainable and eco-friendly development plans.
8)
This Integral Financial Mechanism, in order to be effective, must count
on a contribution of at least 1% of the GDP in developed countries[6]
and other contributions from taxes on oil and gas, financial
transactions, sea and air transport, and the profits of transnational
companies.
9)
Contributions from developed countries must be additional to Official
Development Assistance (ODA), bilateral aid or aid channelled through
organisms not part of the United Nations. Any finance outside the
UNFCCC cannot be considered as the fulfilment of developed country’s
commitments under the convention.
10)
Finance has to be directed to the plans or national programs of the
different states and not to projects that follow market logic.
11)
Financing must not be concentrated just in some developed countries but
has to give priority to the countries that have contributed less to
greenhouse gas emissions, those that preserve nature and are suffering
the impact of climate change.
12)
The Integral Financial Mechanism must be under the coverage of the
United Nations, not under the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and
other intermediaries such as the World Bank and regional development
banks; its management must be collective, transparent and
non-bureaucratic. Its decisions must be made by all member countries,
especially by developing countries, and not by the donors or
bureaucratic administrators.
Technology transfer to developing countries
13)
Innovation and technology related to climate changes must be within the
public domain, not under any private monopolistic patent regime that
obstructs and makes technology transfer more expensive to developing
countries.
14)
Products that are the fruit of public financing for technology
innovation and development of have to be placed within the public
domain and not under a private regime of patents[7], so that they can
be freely accessed by developing countries.
15)
Encourage and improve the system of voluntary and compulsory licenses
so that all countries can access products already patented quickly and
free of cost. Developed countries cannot treat patents and intellectual
property rights as something “sacred” that has to be preserved at any
cost. The regime of flexibilities available for the intellectual
property rights in the cases of serious problems for public health has
to be adapted and substantially enlarged to heal Mother Earth.
16)
Recover and promote indigenous peoples' practices in harmony with
nature which have proven to be sustainable through centuries.
Adaptation and mitigation with the participation of all the people
17)
Promote mitigation actions, programs and plans with the participation
of local communities and indigenous people in the framework of full
respect for and implementation of the United Nations Declaration on
Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The best mechanism to confront the
challenge of climate change are not market mechanisms, but conscious,
motivated and well organised human beings endowed with an identity of
their own.
18)
The reduction of the emissions from deforestation and forest
degradation must be based on a mechanism of direct compensation from
developed to developing countries, through a sovereign implementation
that ensures broad participation of local communities, and a mechanism
for monitoring, reporting and verifying that is transparent and public.
A UN for the environment and climate change
19)
We need a World Environment and Climate Change Organisation to which
multilateral trade and financial organisations are subordinated, so as
to promote a different model of development that environmentally
friendly and resolves the profound problems of impoverishment. This
organisation must have effective follow-up, verification and
sanctioning mechanisms to ensure that the present and future agreements
are complied with.
20)
It is fundamental to structurally transform the World Trade
Organiation, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the
international economic system as a whole, in order to guarantee fair
and complementary trade, as well as financing without conditions for
sustainable development that avoids the waste of natural resources and
fossil fuels in the production processes, trade and product transport.
In
this negotiation process towards Copenhagen, it is fundamental to
guarantee the participation of our people as active stakeholders at a
national, regional and worldwide level, especially taking into account
those sectors most affected, such as indigenous peoples who have always
promoted the defense of Mother Earth.
Humankind
is capable of saving the Earth if we recover the principles of
solidarity, complementarity and harmony with nature in contraposition
to the reign of competition, profits and rampant consumption of natural
resources.
Evo Morales is the President of Bolivia.
References
[1]
Due to the “Niña” phenomenon, that becomes more frequent as a result of
the climate change, Bolivia has lost 4% of its GDP in 2007.
[2] Known as the Clean Development Mechanism
[3]
At the present there is only one adaptation fund with approximately
$500 million for more than 150 developing countries. According to the
UNFCCC secretary, $171 billion is required for adaptation and $380
billionis required for mitigation.
[4] Stern report
[5] Kyoto Protocol, Art. 3.
[6] The Stern Review has suggested one percent of global GDP, which represents less than $700 billion per year.
[7]
According to UNCTAD (1998), public financing in developing countries
contributes with 40% of the resources for innovation and development of
technology.
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